[zrail]

Sweet, free upgrades!

Edit to be slightly less obtuse: surely you're not implying that a common carrier be allowed to discriminate based on facts about a passenger's body without making reasonable accommodations. Surely you're not implying that obese people not be allowed to fly at all. Surely you're not suggesting that fat people should just remove themselves from society so you don't have to deal with them.

Therefore, obese people should get free upgrades to economy plus or better. Thanks for the idea!

[armchairhacker]

Free upgrades sound reasonable to me. Especially if obesity becomes less common via GLP-1s.

[0xffff2]

I'll imply those things. If you don't fit in the seat, you should have to buy two seats is a not very controversial opinion on the internet IMO. I think that opinion basically violates all of your "surely"s already.

Where do you draw the line? A 250lb person probably mostly fits in their seat still, but at some point a person is just physically going to take up two seats. Do you really think the airline should be responsible for flying them in business class (premium economy doesn't give you more width on most/all airlines)? Does it matter if their weight is due to a medical condition or just laziness? What if they're so big that even a first class seat won't contain them?

[rootusrootus]

The issue is for the airline to solve, since they are the ones trying to make seats comically small.

Also, you have to include other attributes. E.g. Not my problem that you have freakishly long legs, if you have to prevent me reclining then maybe you should have to pay for premium economy. And what if you are broad shouldered? Same deal, not my problem, you have to stay inside the boundaries of your own seat.

I would rather we used regulation to make economy seats a bit larger. Call it a safety issue, since it is.

[Der_Einzige]

The downvote the upvote ratios in this thread imply that significant amounts of HN are land whales.